My $600.00 20' Seafari

[cdavisdb]

Bushwacker, that is a great solution. I think there was another one as well. Mine had a splash well with a hatch in front of the engine(which leaked unless siliconed). The well was full of water most of the time(we loaded heavy) I don't think the well was nearly as high as you show, but can't remember exactly how it was shaped. Battery were in the stern on the sides,no seats. The boat was a Mosely.

[Bushwacker]

Originally Posted by cdavisdb

. . . Mine had a splash well with a hatch in front of the engine(which leaked unless siliconed). The well was full of water most of the time(we loaded heavy) I don't think the well was nearly as high as you show, but can't remember exactly how it was shaped. Battery were in the stern on the sides,no seats. The boat was a Mosely.

So the Moesly outboard version of the Seafari had no seats at the back? First I've heard of that! I have a '69 brochure, but it only shows the I/O model. Maybe your boat had a splashwell like this Bowrider?

The original splashwell on mine, and I think on all the Potter 20' CC models except the MA, was no higher than the seats. (pics below) I cut a hatch in it for access to the fuel filter, bilge and trim tab pumps; I mounted some 1.5" chrome brass trim to edges of the piece I cut out, put some foam weatherstripping on it and used some "hold-down buttons" to compress the foam. It was fairly water tight, provided I replaced the weatherstrip about once a year!

[bigeasy1]

Seeing as the 150 Evinrude appears to be toast,I've been looking for some alternative with a little less weight,and maybe less hp.

I came across a 1972 1150 115hp tower of power Merc outboard.I'm not sure what the compression should be but the test was as listed below. "He claims"

Condition is fair for age. Comes with working tilt/trim. Compression - 130, 115, 130, 130, 135, 135.
Please note, you will not be able to just put this on your boat and run, but it will run with a little bit of work.
The guy wants 300.00 for it. he also says the carbs need cleaning or a rebuild. I hear these engines were pretty good.
What do you think.Is it worth sinking some money in this motor,(I'd have it done not diy) or do I look for something else.

The 150 Evinrude that came with the Seafari is still locked up.I've tried everything with no luck.Last try was a mixture of two stroke oil and deep creep,and WD40 rust penetrant.I filled the cylinders with it,and let it sit for three days.It still wont turn with a breaker bar on the flywheel nut.
The starter gear spins,but doesn't want to rise up to contact the teeth on the flywheel. The battery is fully charged.

Wow,I looked at some late model used E-Tecs but holy cow,talk about big bucks.If I go that route,I'll be doing what I planned on not doing,which is dumping a lot of money into this boat.

[Bushwacker]

Originally Posted by bigeasy1

Condition is fair for age. Comes with working tilt/trim. Compression - 130, 115, 130, 130, 135, 135.
Please note, you will not be able to just put this on your boat and run, but it will run with a little bit of work.
The guy wants 300.00 for it. he also says the carbs need cleaning or a rebuild. I hear these engines were pretty good.
What do you think.Is it worth sinking some money in this motor,(I'd have it done not diy) or do I look for something else.

Those were nice very light motors (less than 300 lbs) but a '72 is pretty old, even older than the '75 115 Evinrude I bought new and ran for 31 years! Mine still ran good after ~ 1000 hrs and never left me stranded in the entire time I had it, but it was getting hard to start when cold; I think it may have needed new reed valves. Those old motors are pretty simple and easy to work on if you have the factory manual.

If it was run in saltwater, I'd be a little concerned about corrosion, and the power trim may prove troublesome, as I don't remember those early units being particularly robust. I'd also wonder if it's due for some reed valves, as they tend to fatigue over time; replacement with the fiberglass Boysen reeds might be a good move, if they still make them for that motor. Fr. Frank knows those motors well and could tell you what to watch out for. Also don't know what the parts availability is for that motor; might be better off with a Black Max motor or a V-4 looper, either of which would probably burn less gas. I'm sure Big Shrimpin knows the V-6 Mercs well and could probably fix you up with one! I believe most motors of that vintage ran the control cables in one side and the wiring harness in the other side of the cowling, so it's a little harder to do a neat rigging job on them by running everything thru one rigging tube. If you're gonna pay some one to work on it, then having a good nearby dealer is probably more important than anything else!

[bigeasy1]

Thanks Denny your help is very much appreciated as well as all the other members who joined in my tedious topic.Thanks to all of you.

I'm pretty mechanically inclined and have always done my own work on just about everything.
However as I get older my desire to do bullwork is lessening,and I find myself not wanting to attempt to do do something I'm not familiar with.
Of course I say that,but I just got a quote from a carpenter to do a little work on a tiny back porch on my home,and found his quote of 4,000 to be way over what it should be.
I started thinking,"Hell,I could do that myself for 1500 bucks,and use the rest to put towards a newer outboard"
Now I'm falling right back into that trap again of doing stuff I wanted to stop doing.I guess I'll never learn,so Forget all that stuff I just wrote.

I started thinking that a 72 motor is too old to put a lot of faith in so I'm dropping that idea
.I think I'll keep looking for something around 1995 to 2000.
Any models to stay away from or models that are good,please let me know what you think.I don't know a whole lot about outboards when it comes to which is good or bad.

I'd ask on the Hull truth,but I'm not a fan of that site,I find it to be full of know it all's and everything ends up in a shouting match and beat up of whatever product or manufacturer it is that's being discussed.

BTW any idea of what the 150hp(about 1984-1986) on the back of this Seafari is worth for parts.??

[Bushwacker]

Hey John,

When you only have $600 in the whole boat, I can relate to how hard it is to wrap your mind around the idea of spending thousands of $ on a motor! I went thru the same thought process when I bought my new motor and bracket, spending about 3X what I had originally paid for the whole rig back in 1975! However, when I now look back at that decision 9 years later, I realize that I've taken almost 20 very memorable trips in it, many of which I would probably not have taken with the old motor. So if you figure that it's the memories of what you do with the boat that really count, then I've concluded that it was money well spent!

The Johnrudes are the only motors I'm really familiar with, and I'd avoid any of them made in the late 90's when OMC was in it's death spiral, maybe 97-99. A colleague of mine was the Chief Engineer at their Stuart, Fl. test center during the transition from OMC to BRP, and he said OMC was buying off a lot of deviated parts from suppliers during that time. The designs were fine, and any bad motors may not have survived too long, but I'd be wary of a low time "unproven" motor of that vintage! However he was very impressed with the BRP organization and he said anything made by them (2000 and later) are very high quality motors. BRP continued making carb'd motors for a few years (as Johnson's), but focused new development work on the DI (Evinrude Ficht and E-TEC) motors.

I'd look for a 2000 or later Johnson V-4, as they're much lighter, simpler and cheaper than 4-strokes but very reliable and easy to work on. The newer clean technology motors (both 2 & 4 strokes) run much leaner and are more susceptible to minor fuel starvation problems that can cause overheated/scored pistons, etc. A carb'd 2-stroke will probably tolerate minor fuel system blockages that can kill a newer high tech motor! I think I'd also avoid the early Merc Optimax motors, but Big Shrimpin, Doodlebug and/or Fr. Frank can all provide good advice on the Mercs.

[Terry England]

John, I think Gillie runs a Tower of Power Merc on his Seafari. He would have an idea about the performance. He's been thinking about a repower for some time though because he out running around in the Pacific where if something breaks you just might not end up on a nice sandy beach with coconut trees having Ginger and Mary-Ann fight'in over you!

[Handful in NC]

Before you give up on the old Evinrude, try some Kroil penetrating oil.

[bigeasy1]

I'll give the Kroil a try.Any particular retailers that sell it?? Auto parts stores like NAPA maybe? or someone like McMaster Carr.?

[uncleboo]

search them online. They usually have a 2fer sample pack that is less than the normal price on 1 can.